The Honeymooners is a classic television show for many reasons. You have the genius of Jackie Gleason in the writing, acting and the concept for the whole show to begin with. You also have the great supporting actors and the common man aspect as well. But there is something else people also forget and it’s not how they worked so well together as actors but the relationships that you had in the show.
In most successful sitcoms you have relationships that set the tone for the show that people can relate to. You have of course as you know two married couples and then feeding from them relationships between husband and wife, and then you also have two sets of best friends.
You have the two best friends who have been friends for a very long time along with their wives who have become best friends. In real life you and your best friend are always hoping when you both have a girlfriend or both are married that your wives become friends so you two can hang out more. With the Honeymooners all you see are the two couples hanging out and never really anyone else in terms of a couple.
You only see other women or men hanging with them but only in an all girls or all boys setting. When people watch they can relate more to Ralph because of his blue collar job and him always trying to get quick rich schemes. Another reason you can try to say you can relate to him is because he has a best friend that he does everything with. They eat lunch together during the day when on break from work, they go bowling, play pool, are in a club together, and they get in lots of trouble together usually after one of them comes up with an idea and both go along with it.
You also have Ralph as the friend who takes the lead on all things and Ed is the friend who goes along with it and says yes to all the harebrain schemes, and we all are the friend who either is the leader or the follower. It spills over into the Flintstones which we know is a takeoff of the Honeymooners but also shows like ‘Starsky and Hutch’, ‘Mash’, ‘Boy Meets World’, ‘Drake and Josh’, ‘Will and Grace’, and ‘The King of Queens’, etc. to name a few which you see best friends as the main characters.
It’s a dynamic that people like seeing in a show and there are shows that show a group of people being all good friends like ‘That 70s Show’, ‘Seinfeld’, ‘The League’, ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’, ‘South Park’, ‘Friends’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’, and the ‘Big Bang Theory’ etc. to name a few.
The other big dynamic in terms of relationships in the show is Ralph’s and Alice’s relationship towards each other. It’s a flowery all loveiedubie relationship or it is an all out battle every second of the day hate each other relationship leaning towards divorce. You see how Alice always likes to make fun of Ralph for weight and his stupidity sometimes. You also see Ralph threaten her and almost hit her but he never does.
She is always spoiling his so called ideas but really she’s doing it out love and concern over Ralph. They have that type of relationship where he can get so mad at her but he would never hit her because he loves her too much. He is still mad at her and she is mad too but they have that loving/hating relationship where no matter what at the end they love each other at the end of the day and that’s all that matters no matter who is right.
You love to see relationships like that in a sitcom. You see that when you watched the Flintstones which was based off the Honeymooners. It’s the other thing people like seeing is a good marriage or relationship between two main characters of the male and female persuasion.
Good examples of this are Rob and Laura in the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’, Cory and Topanga in ‘Boy Meets World, Doug and Carrie in the ‘King of Queens’, and in the animated world with Homer and Marge in ‘The Simpsons’, Peter and Louis in ‘Family Guy,’ and Kitty and Red in the ‘That 70’s Show’. With a good relationship between the main characters as a couple is another thing people like seeing in a show besides from the two best friends angle.
One thing that you didn’t really see in the show and something I would have liked to have seen is an episode where Ralph and Trixie would have to spend time together because they only do when the two are with their spouses when they are together. The idea of the two of them having anything in common besides from loving Ed would be funny to see.
The other thing is you see Ed and Alice talking a lot when Ed would wait for Ralph to come home so you can see some real friendship between the two of them but no real even acquaintance between Ralph and Trixie. It’s the old thing calling her by my friend’s wife or girlfriend never really their friend. It was like this in ‘Boy Meets World’ with Corey not really being his best friend’s girlfriend’s real friend. Or in ‘That 70’s Show’ where they weren’t really friends with Jackie only were friendly because she was dating Kelso. That is something they never developed even though they did a great job with the two best friends angle for both sets and both the married couples. They lacked in Ralph and Trixie being friends or having any real relationship.
The other relationship they hit the nail on was Ralph and his mother law. Most men hate their mother law or father in law with their never being good enough for their daughter. You see it with the wife hating her mother law that she isn’t cooking or taking care of her son right. One thing they left out was showing more of Ralph’s family just barely seeing his mom. Because of the template of having the best friend angle and good loving married couples that no matter what they love each other sets the stage for other shows to use this template to have successful shows in the future.